Researching Urban Youth Language and Identity

This book examines how urban adolescents attending a non-mainstream learning centre in the UK use language and other semiotic practices to enact identities in their day-to-day lives. Combining variationist sociolinguistics and ethnographically-informed interactional sociolinguistics, this detailed and highly reflexive account provides rich descriptions and discussions of the linguistic processes at work in a previously underexplored research environment. In doing so, it reveals fresh insights into the changes taking place in urban British English, and into the difficulties of undertaking ethnographic, sociolinguistic research in a challenging context using a combination of methods and approaches. This interdisciplinary work will appeal to students and scholars from across the fields of sociolinguistics, ethnography, and education; as well as providing a valuable resource for teachers and trainees.

Chapter 1: Introduction.Chapter 2: The research context.Chapter 3: Our roles and identities.Chapter 4: Methods.Chapter 5: A Year in the life of the PRU.Chapter 6: Manchester Youth Language.-Chapter 7: TH-stopping, ethnicity, and grime. Chapter 8: Giving back. Chapter 9: Final thoughts.